FIELDS OF STUDY 29 
solving problems relating to the migrations and 
routes by which the existing flora reached its habitats. 
Once more, we have already from Farleton Fell 
observed that plants do not grow higgledy-piggledy 
over the country, but are arranged in more or less 
definite societies depending on similarity of climate, 
soil, and other external conditions. Studied from this 
point of view, the flora resolves itself into a series 
of communities, each requiring a certain set of con- 
ditions for its continued welfare. The study of these 
inter-relations between plants and their environment, 
and of the types of vegetation resulting from the 
grouping together of plants requiring similar con- 
ditions, is the province of Ecological Botany. 
Again, the morphologist deals with the forms of 
the organs of plants, and the changes which these 
undergo in different plants, while the anatomist in- 
vestigates their minuter structure. 
Physiological Botany deals with the life processes 
of plants, and the way in which they feed and grow 
and move. It has a very important bearing on the 
distribution and grouping of plants, since this is 
largely governed by their food-supply and by the 
need of surroundings which allow them to carry on 
their life processes with success. 
It will be seen that there are many lines of enquiry 
open to the student of botany. In the following 
pages no more can be attempted than the preliminary 
study of some of the more familiar phenomena of 
plant life as it presents itself to the holiday-maker on 
the hills and woods and shores of our own land. 
